In this blog we want to raise awareness about the importance of eating a chocolate with NO extra cocoa butter and only 1 or 2 ingredients: cacao beans and the sweetener (sugar, stevia, unrefined cane sugar, coconut sugar or any other).
CACAO BEANS ARE A SUPERFOOD, ONE OF THE FOODS WITH THE HIGHEST ANTIOXIDANT CONTENT.
This alone does not mean that a dark chocolate will also be full of this antioxidants as there are other ingredients composing a chocolate bar. These include the sweetener each manufacturer decides to use –sugar, unrefined cane, stevia, etc– extra cocoa butter, milk powder, lecithins, artificial flavours, etc.
In this blog we want to focus on extra cocoa butter and explain how this ingredient affects the real pure flavour of a chocolate and its antioxidant and healthy capacity.
EVERYTHING THAT COMES FROM THE CACAO TREE CAN BE COUNTED AS A % OF COCOA CONTENT IN A BAR: CACAO BEANS, COCOA, COCOA BUTTER.
What this means is that a 80% cacao bar has 80% of its ingredients coming from the cacao tree and a remaining 30% coming from other sources, for example, sugar.
This does not mean that 80% of the cacao is pure cacao beans. You have to read the label and check if beans are the only ingredient coming from the theobroma cacao tree. If cocoa butter is listed, it is being counted within the 80% and it is stealing some space of the healthy, natural and pure cacao beans.
It is at this stage that the ingredient list in each chocolate bar will tell you many things:
1. How pure is the recipe?
2. How healthy is it?
3. Is it really single origin cacao?
4. Does the company have traceability, quality control and direct trade?
DOES COCOA BUTTER CONTAIN SPECIALTY FLAVOURS OR RELEVANT ANTIOXIDANTS?
Nope. Cocoa butter does not contain the flavour compounds that make cacao a specialty food nor the antioxidants that make it be considered a superfood.
Cocoa butter is a neutral fat, obtained after pressing the cacao mass and used in many industries.
A cacao bean is naturally made up of 50% - 60% cocoa butter, the remaining part being cocoa solids.
WHY IS EXTRA COCOA BUTTER WIDELY ADDED?
Cocoa butter is mainly added to hide off-flavours from bad post-harvest processes in origin countries. To lower astringency, bitterness and acidity and to make the melting experience more fluid or "enjoyable".
Manufacturers who do not have a real quality control process in place in origin countries –something very costly– or constant communication with farmers, end up receiving bags of cocoa beans with variable fermentation protocols and thus many different flavour profiles. Making single origin chocolate with these beans and no extra cocoa butter would only show the lack of traceability and quality control.
Moreover, the product would evidence the lack of standarization as each batch of chocolate would taste completely different –for better or worse– even to the palate of first time dark chocolate consumers.
We have to say it: FOR US COCOA BUTTER IS LIKE KETCHUP. WHEN YOU CAN'T PREPARE A GOOD MEAL, JUST ADD KETCHUP AND YOU WILL BE OKAY. BUT IF YOU KNOW HOW TO PROPERLY COOK, YOU WILL NOT EVEN HAVE IT IN YOUR INGREDIENTS.
THE HARD PROCESS OF MAKING A TASTY AND PURE DARK CHOCOLATE BAR
- Genetic identification: genetics are the first factor affecting the flavour quality in chocolate. Besides yield quantity, plague and weather resistance, genetics affect quality and thus different genetics need a different fermentation process.
- Selected Harvesting: only ripe cacao fruits should be collected in the harvest process but as farmers in growing countries are only starting to be educated about the importance of sugars and other compounds in fermentation most of them collect all the fruits, including green one who have not yet developed enough sugars and thus will not have a good fermentation process.
- Differentiated Post Harvest: ripe cacao beans will begin fermentation but we must go back to point 1 as this process should be done separating genetics according to its level of phenols. To make it easy for farmers, this could be done after understanding the seed color of her/his trees. White or pale seed should be fermented shorter than darker seed cacao.
- Chocolate manufacturing: roasting, winnowing, milling, refining, aging and tempering are the remaining processed a cacao bean will undergo to become a chocolate bar. These are where the chocolatier will "impart" its signature flavours. We believe that extra cocoa butter is added because manufacturers only start from here. Lacking traceability, quality control and constant communication with producers do not only create bad prices and intermediaries, it also creates low quality and therefore the need to fill a dark chocolate with extra cocoa butter.
"Of course this is only our point of view and other manufacturers can disagree. Making chocolate from the fruit has filled us with some knowledge of how pure and natural chocolate should be."
Juan, co-founder and CEO
We encourage you to make 2-ingredient chocolate bars your main chocolate choice and immerse your palate in real pure chocolates instead of ones filled with cocoa butter.
Your opinion is very valuable for us. In case you have questions or recommendations regarding this topic, email us to uk@juanchoconat.com